Ever since the end of the 19th century the US has played a leading role in the process of modernization, which nowadays presents itself, above all, as globalization. A major orientation for America has been the millennial concept, fusing Puritan doctrines of salvation with Enlightenment notions of a perfectionistic teleology of history. The papers collected in this volume investigate the multi-dimensional topicality of the millennial concept, looking backward and ahead, thematizing lifeworlds and latent structural presences.
